Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to proximity service protocols.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipments (UEs). A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station). UEs may communicate directly with neighboring UEs using proximity services (ProSe) communications.
A UE (an edge UE) may move out of coverage area of a base station and, instead, use a relay UE to continue communicating with the network. For example, the edge UE may discover the existence of the relay UE using a ProSe Direct Discovery service, and select the relay UE for use. The edge UE may establish a connection with the relay UE in order for the traffic from the edge UE to be forwarded to the network, and so that the traffic from the network can be relayed to the edge UE. As a result, the edge UE may exchange some information with the relay UE to establish the relay link. Current configurations, however, do not provide support for protocols to exchange information to establish the ProSe relay link between an edge UE and a relay UE.